What is WooCommerce?

WooCommerce is a free WordPress plugin that allows you to create an online store by adding e-commerce functionality to your website. Your WordPress website transforms into a fully functional e-commerce website with just a few clicks. If you’re wondering “What is WooCommerce?” you probably already have a WordPress site and are ready to start selling, well, anything. We’ll go over what WooCommerce is, what it can do for you, and why you should use it in this post.

WooCommerce is a WordPress plugin that seamlessly integrates with your existing WordPress site, transforming it into a fully functional WordPress e-commerce site in just a few clicks. When the plugin was first released in 2011, it quickly became the go-to solution for anyone looking to start their own online store. Automattic (the company behind WordPress.com) bought the plugin and its parent company in 2015, making it their largest acquisition to that point, and it has continued to grow at a breakneck pace ever since.

In the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom, it currently powers over 99 percent of WordPress e-commerce websites. It’s the driving force behind numerous e-commerce sites, with over 27,000,000 downloads and millions of active installations.

What Does WooCommerce Do?

WooCommerce comes with basic store functionality out of the box, thanks to a free plugin that can be downloaded from the Plugin Repository or installed directly from your WordPress dashboard. While there are hundreds of extensions available it comes with some fantastic features out of the box.

Easy Installation, Setup, and Integration

WooCommerce is designed to make getting started as simple as possible, with a simple installation and Setup Wizard that will get your e-commerce store up and running with your WordPress theme in no time.

Installation – The WooCommerce plugin is installed in the same way as any other plugin; look for it in your WordPress dashboard’s Plugins options, and install and activate it with a few clicks.

Setup – When you first install WooCommerce, the Setup Wizard will walk you through the basics of setting up your store. Your e-commerce options are practically limitless, but the Setup Wizard gets right to the point and highlights the most important options so you don’t miss a beat.

WooCommerce Integration with WordPress Themes – WooCommerce is compatible with WordPress, so it works with most WordPress themes. If you want to use the official theme, you can choose the Storefront theme, which, like the plugin, is free!

Data Management – You’ll never lose control of your data again because WooCommerce puts you in the driver’s seat.

Always have access to your data – If you use a third-party e-commerce platform, your data is lost if they close. You always have control over your data with WooCommerce. A successful e-commerce website requires data about customer history and purchases, as well as store performance.

Shopping Cart with a Lot of Options
From start to finish, customize your site visitor’s checkout process with processes that help you convert visitors into customers. Set up your site the way you want it to be, from the payment gateway to the checkout URLs.

Payment Gateways – You can accept checks, cash on delivery, bank transfers, or PayPal payments for major credit cards and other PayPal payments with WooCommerce. Do you prefer stripes? The Setup Wizard can be used to set up Stripe as a payment gateway.

Geolocation and Automatic Taxes – WooCommerce gives you the option to enable geolocation and automatic taxes, ensuring that your customers see the correct price, including taxes, regardless of where they are in the world.

Customizable Checkout Process – Manage the entire checkout process from beginning to end. You can sell to specific countries or the entire world, customize your checkout flow URLs, enable/disable guest checkout, and require secure checkout.

Default Currency – You can choose from a wide range of currencies to use as your store’s default currency.

Redirect Cart – Once a product is added, you can choose to redirect your customer to their cart.

Complete Product Control – Whether you’re selling a single product, a product with multiple options, or dozens, hundreds, or thousands of products… You have complete control over each and every one of your products with WooCommerce.

Unlimited Products – Begin with your first product and expand from there. WooCommerce allows you to add as many products as you want, with the only limitation being your hosting solution.Do you sell ebooks as a product type? What are affiliate products? Do you want to create your own one-of-a-kind stock? It’s no problem. Simple Product, Grouped Product, External/Affiliate Product, Variable Product, or Virtual/Downloadable Product are all options for your product type.

Product Variations – If your products have options, your customers can choose those options when placing their orders, saving you both time. Each available option can have its own set of sizes, colors, prices, stock levels, images, and more.

Inventory Management – Take charge of your inventory! Stock levels, backorders, hiding out-of-stock inventory, and receiving email notifications when an item’s stock level is low or sold out, among other features, all help you streamline and simplify product management.

Easy Shipping with WooCommerce

WooCommerce not only makes selling your product simple, but it also makes getting it to your customer simple. A variety of shipping options make it easy to get your products to your customers!

Built-in options to offer Flat rate, International Shipping, Local delivery, or Local pickup make shipping less of a headache. Set your rate to Automatic and offer your customers the best price based on their location – or even free shipping. Hide the shipping rate until an address is entered, include a Shipping Calculator in your shopping cart, and allow your customers to ship to their Billing Address only, or to a separate Shipping Address.

Easy Tax Management with WooCommerce

Dealing with taxes is a necessary part of running a successful e-commerce store. WooCommerce makes this easier for you by providing a number of options that make dealing with taxes much less stressful.

Tax Management – Because WooCommerce is an online product designed for selling products online, it has tax management built right in. Custom tax rates, major tax rate computations, and geo-location tax rates are just a few of the options available. You can also control the tax rate that is applied to your shipping costs by defining tax rates.

WooCommerce Marketing and Search Engine Optimization

If people don’t know you’ve built a better mousetrap, they won’t come to your door! WooCommerce makes use of WordPress SEO to help spread the word and alert potential customers to your presence.

WordPress SEO – Because WooCommerce is built on WordPress, your e-commerce store can take advantage of WordPress’s built-in SEO features. WooCommerce storefronts benefit from a significant SEO boost as a result of this, as well as the granular controls provided for key SEO options.

Discounts and Coupon Codes – Enable discounts and coupon codes without ever discounting tax.
Product reviews are critical for boosting online sales, and you can enable them right from your dashboard. You can choose to allow only verified customer reviews and display a label identifying the reviewers as verified.

WooCommerce Sales Information

Selling products is a great place to start, and WooCommerce reports can help you keep track of what you’re selling, spot trends, and analyze your data so you can plan for future expansion.

Store Dashboard – Use the built-in dashboard to quickly see your traffic, orders, and status summary. WooCommerce reports allow you to see your gross and net sales as well as print reports.
Analyzing – Keep track of your sales and growth trends to help you plan your store’s expansion.

WooCommerce Customer Management

The Customer Management tools in WooCommerce make it simple for your site visitors to move from visitor to customer, and from customer to repeat client.

Accounts and Passwords – Encouraging and making it simple for your customers to create accounts will help you retain customers. You can configure your WooCommerce installation to automatically generate passwords and the customer account username from the customer’s email address, making the account creation process go more smoothly.

Because your store should travel with you! Right from your mobile device, you can check your product catalog, product details, orders, and more.

Fully Extendable

The sky is the limit when it comes to WooCommerce extensions. With over 450 extensions and counting, you can virtually configure your shop in any way you want. Extensions are add-ons that work only if WooCommerce is installed first, and they add additional functionality to your e-commerce website instead of adding to the core plugin. You can get free and premium extensions from the WooCommerce store, and the WordPress plugin directory has a lot of plugins that are designed for or compatible with WooCommerce.